School safety: The Safe Classrooms Act.

Existing law provides that the Legislature recognizes that crime, including vandalism, and violence have reached an alarming level at schoolsites throughout California and further recognizes that there is a need for dealing with the complex problems of crime and violence at schoolsites and for developing effective techniques and programs to combat crime and violence at schoolsites. Existing law, the School Safety and Violence Prevention Act, which is administered by the Superintendent of Public Instruction, requires the Superintendent to provide funds to school districts serving pupils in any of grades 8 to 12, inclusive, for the purpose of promoting school safety and reducing schoolsite violence. This bill, the Safe Classrooms Act, would appropriate $850,000,000 from the General Fund to the Superintendent for allocation to school districts and charter schools for the purpose of funding projects that address classroom and school facility safety improvements. The bill would specify that eligible projects include, among other things, security threat assessment surveys and school facility safety improvements. The bill would require the Superintendent to establish an application process for school districts and charter schools to apply for funding of these projects, and would require the Superintendent, in approving the applications, to consider equitable distribution between school districts and charter schools in urban and rural areas and pupil enrollment. Funds appropriated by this bill would be applied toward the minimum funding requirements for school districts and community college districts imposed by Section 8 of Article XVI of the California Constitution. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.